Quotes by Women

Although Virginia Woolf put it with her characteristic wit, “for most of history, Anonymous, was a woman,” female wisdom has come to us over centuries in the form of wise and witty quotes from many different women from all over the world. The following collection of quotes is from many great women on a variety of subjects that are near and dear to women’s hearts.

“The right to happiness is fundamental.” Anna Pavlova

“Those who do not complain are never pitied.” Jane Austen

“Much madness is divinest Sense.” Emily Dickinson

“Our perfect companions never have more than four feet.” Colette

“Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.” Alice Walker

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead." Louisa May Alcott

“A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked.” Jane Austen

“While you are experimenting, do not remain content with the surface of things. Don't become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin.” Isabel Allende

“It is better to be looked over than overlooked.” Mae West

“Our truest responsibility to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find the truth.” Madeleine L’Engle

“The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation, because in the degradation of women, the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.” Lucretia Mott

“I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king.” Elizabeth I of England

“I'm not denyin' that women are foolish; God Almighty made 'em to match men.” George Eliot

“I accept the universe!” Margaret Fuller

“The greatest danger to our future is apathy.” Jane Goodall

“If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship we must love friends for their sake rather than our own.” Charlotte Bronte

“Women have been the truly active people in all cultures, without whom human society would long ago have perished, though our activity has most often been on the behalf of men and children.” Adrienne Rich

“Truth—is as old as God.” Emily Dickinson

“Grammar is a piano I play by ear.” Joan Didion

“I ask the support of no one, neither to kill someone for me, gather a bouquet, correct a proof, nor to go with me to the theater. I go there on my own, as a man, by choice; and when I want flowers, I go on foot, by myself, to the Alps.” George Sand

“You guard against decay, in general, and stagnation, by moving, by continuing to move.” Mary Daly

“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.” Eleanore Roosevelt

“After all, tomorrow is another day.” Margaret Mitchell

“Just remember, we're all in this alone.” Lily Tomlin

“Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives; — that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.” Mary Wollstonecraft

“Perseverance is failing nineteen times and succeeding the twentieth.” Julie Andrews

“The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything... or nothing.” Nancy Astor

“Women never have a half-hour in all their lives (excepting before or after anybody is up in the house) that they can call their own, without fear of offending or of hurting someone. Why do people sit up so late, or, more rarely, get up so early? Not because the day is not long enough, but because they have 'no time in the day to themselves.” Florence Nightingale

“Doorways are sacred to women for we are the doorways of life and we must choose what comes in and what goes out.” Marge Piercy

“One is not born a woman, one becomes one.” Simone de Beauvoir

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” Virginia Woolf

“This raging sunset, and the exuberance
Of spiritual strength, and the charm of sweet life.” Anna Akhmatova

“Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.” Edith Wharton

“All things must come to the soul from its roots,
from where it is planted.
The tree that is beside the running water
is fresher and gives more fruit.” Teresa of Avila

“I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.” Margaret Mead

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am.” Sylvia Plath

“Four be the things I'd have been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.” Dorothy Parker

"For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women." Elizabeth Blackwell

“I never hated a man so much to give him his diamonds back.” Zsa Zsa Gabor

“It is woman's destiny to rule men. Not to serve them, flatter them, or hang on them for guidance. Nor to insult them, demean them, or stereotype them as oppressors.” Camille Paglia

"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road—the one "less traveled by"—offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth." Rachel Carson

“Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.” Abigail Adams

“Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where you renew your springs that never dry up.” Pearl S. Buck